


Slacker (Luke Hemmings)

by orphan_account



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 14:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7467054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The contrast between Feilding, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia was daunting enough without a rock-star-to-be messing up Hannah's emotions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slacker (Luke Hemmings)

Moving to a new city was always pretty daunting, but moving to an entirely different country was different. The accents were nearly identical and the slang was similar, but Australia was definitely no New Zealand. Rain? Nearly non-existent until there was some sort of devastating storm in the middle of monsoon season. From what I could gather, Darwin was my best bet for a Kiwi climate, but Darwin was nowhere near Sydney. And then there was the temperature change.

In the middle of the winter in New Zealand, coats and gloves and hats – the whole shebang – were a necessity, with temperatures plummeting below freezing and rivers literally freezing over. In Sydney, right now, it was the middle of July and currently eleven degrees centigrade… and there was a boy walking directly in front of me dressing for the North Pole. “It’s eleven degrees,” I said, “not the Arctic.” My breath didn’t even steam out of my mouth as I spoke; pathetic. This wasn’t winter. This was barely Autumn. The tall, thin figure stopped in his tracks and turned on his heel. “What are you wearing? You’ll freeze,” He said, visibly horrified at my choice of clothing; rolled up skinny jeans and an old jumper. “It’s July, not November.”  
“Clearly you’re temperature sensitive,” I droned, folding over the too-long sleeves of my jumper. In all honesty, the entire jumper was too big (and it wasn’t mine – it was my brother’s), but it was comfortable and made me look skinnier than I was. The boy’s cheeks were flushed pink from the cold and his nose looked like he’d been having makeup lessons from Santa’s elves; bright red. His ghastly pale skin probably didn’t help him. “How on Earth are you this cold?” He probably had somewhere to be, but I cared more about my own agenda of calling him out on his clothing than I did about his punctuality. “How on Earth aren’t you this cold?”  
“It’s not even cold enough to refrigerate a yogurt.”  
“Well, I’m not a yogurt.” Duly noted. “I’m more like bread. Refrigerated bread is disgusting.”  
“Speak for yourself! I happen to be the finest of refrigerated breads.”   
“How fine can refrigerated bread be, exactly?” He asked, tentatively checking his phone and tugging on his blue scarf. He looked exaggeratedly cold, as though he needed an extra pair of socks and a blanket over his shoulders. Were Australians really this wimpy? “Finer than regular bread, I can tell you that.”   
“I’m Luke,” he said, smiling at me, craning his head down at an angle that couldn’t have been comfortable; for his sake, I hoped I’d grow soon. Luke held out his larger than average gloved hand with an irrevocably serious expression. I plastered an identical look onto my face and shook his hand with defiance. “Hannah.”  
“Well, Hannah, it was great meeting you but I need to be somewhere.”  
“So do I.”  
“I’ll see you around?” Hopefully.

Exploring Sydney was my first port of call when I arrived. Despite not wanting to leave Feilding, new places did interest me greatly, whether my mother was here to experience them with me or not. With my new address stored in my phone’s GPS in case I got lost, I set out into the city centre and hoped for the best – Feilding was more landscape, whereas Sydney was more… cityscape. Dad had told me I’d been fine in Sydney, because I’d been fine in Feilding. What he hadn’t told me was that Sydney was a whole different level of city. Crossing the road had already proved to be ridiculous, as level crossings were scarce, and apparently Australians drove like there was lava following them. Little homely book stores were nowhere to be found and what did a girl have to do to get a music store that wasn’t an over expensive chain supplier?

“Any luck?” My dad shouted from the kitchen. Unboxing things was the part he was most looking forward to, apparently, because it ‘evoked nostalgia’. Shouldn’t the nostalgia have come with packing everything into boxes in the first place? I made my way into the kitchen to find him surrounded by boxes of kitchen utensils he didn’t know how to use. “Absolutely none.” I kicked off my plimsolls and sat beside a half dismantled bar stool. “Chain stores have basically taken over the country.” I had a strict no chain store rule, under the fact that independent stores are much more personal. Something else I liked about Feilding. Everything was much more personal. “You have to expect that in a city like this, H”  
“I know, but I thought I’d be able to find at least one independent store. Even if it were just a coffee shop, and you know all I drink is water.” I didn’t like the taste of anything else; I wasn’t a health freak. I removed my jumper to reveal a vest top underneath. That Luke kid would have a fit if he could see me, now. “Well, instead of stressing about that, help me put this table up. The neighbours have invited us over for dinner and I’d like to come home to furniture, not boxes and piles of wood.”

By six o’clock, we had collectively constructed one dining chair; we agreed to not talk about the table anymore. At least the living room made the house look presentable upon entering. I decided to dress somewhere between casual and formal with rolled skinny jeans and plimsolls with a nicer long sleeved top, the sleeves rolled past my wrists. Dad had had a similar idea, I saw, while he loitered around the front door. “You ready?” I nodded and smiled. Meeting new people was always exciting. Dad locked the door behind us and made his way up next door’s drive. Their house was prettier than our, from the outside. I thought about how much mum would have loved to see it, but stopped myself. She didn’t matter anymore. Dad knocked on the door and shook a man’s hand when it opened. “Peter! Come in. This is your daughter?”  
“Hannah,” I said, smiling.  
“I’m Ben.” Ben stepped aside to let us into the house, which was also prettier than ours on the inside. This place was making me feel bad about myself.

While Ben looked quite a bit older than me, his brother Jack didn’t look very old at all, despite supposedly being eighteen; I was only sixteen, at this point. “Luke should be home, eventually,” Liz, Ben and Jack’s (and apparently Luke’s) mum grumbled, shaking her head. Apparently he’d made a habit of staying out too late with his friends and missing dinner. “He’s a bit of a slacker,” Jack said, not really sounding fond of his brother. “Spends too much time messing around not and not enough actually trying to do well in school.”   
“What year is he in?”  
“Eleven,” His father, Andrew, replied.  
“Most of the year are like that, honestly,” I said, with a smile. At least, that’s how it had been in New Zealand. I’d managed to do pretty well in school, honestly, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t had my fair share of fun, too. My dad got into conversation about how stressful teenagers and how living with one must be so much easier than living with three, and I pulled out my phone to text my best friend back home, Charlie.

Hannah: Dinner’s a drag.  
Charlie: I’ll fix it! Why is a physics book always unhappy?  
Hannah: Because he’s in love with a chemistry book.  
Charlie: No.  
Hannah: His wife left him for a biology book?  
Charlie: No.  
Hannah: He’s secretly an English book.  
Charlie: Hannah, why?  
Hannah: You asked. I answered. What about… someone drew a penis on the back cover and he can’t reach it in the shower to rub it off.  
Charlie: No, Hannah, no one drew a penis on his back. Would you like the answer?  
Hannah: No! No, I think I got it! He got dropped in a muddy puddle. When his pages dried, they were all crinkled and his girlfriend’s (you remember the chemistry book?) straighteners are broken.  
Charlie: IT HAS A LOT OF BLOODY PROBLEMS!  
Hannah: Alright, no need to use the shouty caps on me.  
Charlie: Why do you go out of your way to ruin my jokes? I miss you.  
Hannah: I miss you, too.

I locked my phone, thinking that the sadness could wait a little while. I hadn’t even been in Australia for a full night yet. She’d have to be sad by herself. I heard the door open and anticipated the arrival of the third Hemmings brother; knowing someone in my year at school would probably be useful. “I’m so sorry I’m late. Mali was being difficult and Calum was pissed and Ashton couldn’t drive me and- Hannah?”  
“Luke?” I probably should have putt wo and two together before this point, but he couldn’t be the only Luke in Sydney; it didn’t occur to me that he could have been my neighbour. Our parents looked from him and then to me and back again. “You’ve met?” Andrew asked, clearly confused.  
“This is bread girl, Dad.” I choked, watching my dad’s expression change.  
“Bread girl?”  
“The finest of refrigerated breads,” I said, getting a laugh from Luke and his dad and confused glares from everyone else. Maybe I wasn’t going to hate it here.

Saying that, I didn’t actually have a bed yet. Dinner with the Hemmings’ had been lovely, if confusing for the majority of the family. Luke and I had joked around about the weather and different foods, and Dad and I probably would have starved if they hadn’t have asked us over that night. But then it was time to go home and Dad and I realised that our beds were flat packed piles of wood, sitting in the hall and that we hadn’t even chosen bedrooms yet. “Why do we do this to ourselves?”  
“I don’t know. Want to camp out down here?” I nodded my head, smiling. When I was little, my dad and I would stay up late in the living room and ‘camp’, since Mum had never let me actually go camping and I was desperate. It was a once a month thing, until Mum started to insist that I was far too old for childish games; now, there was no one to stop us. “I didn’t bring the tent, but we can make one,” Dad smiled, piles of blankets and pillows at his feet.


End file.
